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[Doc]

Wait, even better than marbles and tiddly-winks - how about dodgeball and monkey-in-the-middle?

Red rover, red rover I call over.... Uruguay!

Schoolyard olympics, I think this is an idea whose time has come!

[Golfhaus]

I would punish at the distance-spitting-off-of-the-swingset event.

[pmcd9]

It all looked like a goddamned Nazi rally to me.

Fake smiles, explosions, thousands of people doing things in mechanical unison so that they aren't beaten.

Call me nuts but it looked like the kind of frightening display of national unity/power/ability-to-waste-resources that connotates a desire to invade a neighboring nation within about three years.

Rush Limbaugh made an almost identical point.

[wombat]

Wait a minute, did they just say on the radio that there's steeplechase racing at the Olympics? Now that I would watch. It's probably on at 2 in the morning though, right?

[wombat]

Read about the switch in child 'singers' for the opening ceremonies today. Disgusting to me. Having a 'prettier' child lip synch to the singing of the child some politburo muckety-muck determined not to be the face China presented to the world in the final day cramps my undies. Crooked teeth was one of the slipped reasons.

I thought this story was actually almost funny. I mean, it's just amazing how the Chinese government doesn't get it, so hard. You'd think that any idiot would realize that this, and pre-taped fireworks, and destroying people's neighborhoods to build venues, and scaring them into getting rid of their pets as we discussed in another thread some time ago... that all of these things would be bad publicity. And that publicity would have a worse effect than crooked teeth on a little girl. And that all of these things would not be secrets in the rest of the internet-saturated world. And that this would NOT have the effect on China's reputation that they seem to desire. Seriously what were they thinking?

[Arachno-capitalist]

Phelps comes off as kind of dumb as he doesn't articulate himself well at all. Maybe he damaged his brain when he was out getting underage DUIs.

In other news, you will go your whole day without hurting as much as this guy: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=33a_1218642189&p=1. Bonus points for the Chinese minders with blinders at the ready.

[Golfhaus]

During the opening ceremonies, a boy accompanied Yao Ming during his flag-bearing duties. He was 9 years old, and had some scars and stuff... partially shave head, etc.

Turns out he was in school when the earthquake hit a few months ago. He dug his way out, found some authorities, and WENT BACK IN because he knew where survivors were. And when they asked him why he did what he did, he basically said, "I'm a hall monitor. I'm a leader among my class, it's what's expected of me."

We have college students that can't write complete sentences, and the Chinese have 9-year-olds re-entering earthquake rubble because they are a student leader. The neighboring country they're going to invade is us, and we're not going to have a damn clue what to do about it.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Im completely underwhelmed by a country where 1 out of 10 people can't read or write, half of the people are farming, and the top 10% is doing 35% of the consumption.

Literacy: Total population: 90% Females: 86%  - The total population averages 6 years of education.
GDP - per capita (PPP): $5,300 (U.S. is $45,800)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 43%
Household income or consumption by percentage share: highest 10%: 34.9%
Electricity - consumption: 2.859 trillion kWh (we use a trillion more kWh). Petroleum consumption is also small in comparison.

For all of those people they aren't producing much of value. $5k PPP? That's laughable, really. The country is staffed by low-skill uneducated laborers.

[Doc]

While you're comforting yourself with stats A-Cap here's another for you: 1.3 Billion people.

With more than 4 times the USA's population and a society used to doing what the government tells them it doesn't matter if they have a smaller proportion of educated people because in raw numbers (maybe not yet, but soon) they'll still have more than us and those poor uneducated slobs your dismissing? They're going to be the power to back it up whether militarily or in terms of cheap manual labour.

My history's never great but wasn't the USA's economic rise basically due to it's huge industrial ability based on low-pay factory jobs?

My (incredibly, deeply uninformed) guess is the main thing holding them back so far is that their social structure is so borked they have too much trouble keeping their own house in order to worry about the rest of the world.

[wombat]

Phelps comes off as kind of dumb as he doesn't articulate himself well at all.

I don't think it's fair to expect athletes to be articulate. I mean, my editor doesn't expect me to swim on top of being able to write a coherent 800 word story, you know?

[Arachno-capitalist]

LFM yells at me for reading books because they aren't "real world" and Doc hates factual numbers that represent real world data. Can't please everybody I guess.
1.3 billion doesn't really mean much to me. 520,000,000 farmers and 130,000,000 people over 15 who can't read. That hall monitor kid certainly is pretty cool, too bad he's likely to end his education in a couple years.
The "not now, but soon" argument doesn't really hold together. This is one of the oldest societies in the world, I don't see any outstanding reason for them to suddenly get it together. Militarily, they don't have many options. They survive on our trade so any aggression toward us or our allies would be crippling - to them. We're also talking about military technology and a military budget much older and much smaller than the U.S. in raw numbers and percentages.

[AugustWest]

I know this is so cliche, but I've always liked the Chinese people.  The government not so much.

a society used to doing what the government tells them

I've come to have a very pragmatic view of governments and how they relate to cultures.  Yep, the Chinese have a very authoritarian, bureaucratic system of government.  Just like they have for the past 5000 years.  Putin is turning into the next Stalin/Tsar.  The middle east continues to wallow in tribalism.  And we seem to slide faster and faster into oligarchy.  It may be a little facile, but sometimes it seems like thing never really change much, no matter how they appear on the surface.

Also, I don't care if Phelps drools on himself and can only say "ugh."  That motherfucker is impressive.  I mean the dude sets a world record and he isn't even breathing hard afterwards.  Shiiiiiiit!

[Doc]

LFM yells at me for reading books because they aren't "real world" and Doc hates factual numbers that represent real world data.

Hey don't start that, I'm nothing if not all about the empiricism. I was calling you out for quoting statistics with no context, you seem to be over-focusing on proportions and ignoring what those numbers actually represent in terms of raw manpower.
The fact that China rely on the western world for trade doesn't mean you should discount them, we rely on them for manufacturing. What's more likely: that they will catch up to us technologically or that we're suddenly going to sprout a working class big enough to replace them? You're talking like there's some stable equilibrium between China and the rest of the world that isn't going to change any time soon but the less isolated China becomes the faster they are going to catch up with the world technologically.

How comforting is it having them in  your backyard?

It's freaking awesome! They buy all the iron and uranium we can dig up. We're going to be cutting you suckers loose soon.

[littlefallsmets]

I like me some womens softball. Rising fastballs, ponytails and visors are hawt.

And on this we can all agree.

Holy God, softball players are either knock-out drop-dead gorgeous or... look like me. There's no in-between.

It's kind of amazing.

[Doc]

... look like me.

I don't meant to be a douche on a guy's birthday but... AH! That's a frightening thought.

I didn't see any softball but women's hockey? Damn! The whole stick and ball thing introduces worrying imagery but for women with calves like those I'd risk it.